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In terms of performances against the clock, Kathy Cook's career peaked
at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where she recorded career best
times of 49.42sec when finishing third in the 400m, and 22.10sec in her
fourth-place finish in the 200m. By comparison, Cook had a relatively
subdued season in 1985, although still producing some noteworthy
performances. At the WAAA championships held in Birmingham during July,
Cook won her sixth WAAA 200m title as well as finishing a close second
in the 100m final. Kathy's fastest 200m time of the year was 22.87sec,
which she recorded when finishing fifth at the European Cup final in
Moscow on 18 August. In 1986, Cook won the WAAA 400m title at
Birmingham in July, before producing a stunning set of performances at
the Commonwealth Games (see photo above) in Edinburgh which
netted her four medals.
Cook's first event at Edinburgh was the 400m,
where she finished third in the final on 27 July in a time of 51.88sec.
Four days later, in the 200m final, Kathy won the silver medal,
duplicating her performance at the previous Games held four years
earlier in Brisbane. Two days after that, on 2 August, Kathy ran the
second leg on the English 4 x 100m relay team that won the gold medal,
and was also a member of the English 4 x 400m relay team, which won the
silver medal behind Canada. Despite this medal haul, Cook struggled
during 1986 to reproduce her form of previous years, and at the European
Championships held four weeks later in Stuttgart, she was eliminated
from the 200m in the semi-finals. In her last race at a major
international championships before her retirement, Cook helped the
United Kingdom team to a fifth place finish in the 4 x 100m relay at
Stuttgart. (Ron Casey)
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